Sole Survivors...

First ...some free advertising for Stride-Rite shoes.  Sometime ago I mentioned that I prefer to buy my boys shoes at Stride-Rite and someone responded that .....I was simply paying for the name and the shoes at discount stores were just as good. (insert game-show buzzer sound effect here).  See pic.  On the left are a pair of shoes from Target(2 months old) and on the right.... Stride-Rite brand( 7 months old).  See the difference?

 

You do get what you pay for..... don't you?

That being said...  I'm not going to knock Target for their shoes.  I know going in that they don't invest much if anything into developing a "kid-perfect" shoe.  It's not what they're there for...  I pretty much got what I expected.


Up until recently I had always got the boys shoes at Stride-Rite....   Because that's the brand shoes my parents got for us when my siblings and I were the boys age.... and also I want to know what's going on with my child's feet as the develop and grow and the well-trained staff at Stride-Rite can tell you this vs. at a Target, Shoe Carnival , etc.    For example....  One would assume WiMi since they are twins, wear the same shoe size....  but they don't.  They are about a size 1/2 apart and both have extra-wide feet and Wms' right foot is a couple centimeters longer than his left.  So one has to be very careful in selecting off-the-rack shoes if that's going to be the case. 

Me and Mr. Staples are going to have to talk about proper shoes choices

 Buying kid shoes at Target has been more of an economically-based decision than anything. The boys are growing faster than my budget currently is.  As much as I like Target I  begrudgingly have bought the last two pair of shoes for Wimi there.. most recently this past Friday.  Why I'm sharing this story is that it never ceases to amaze me ... the level of humbleness and appreciation my boys express on any given day....   I think it bothers me far more than it does to have shoes from Target.  Once they put a pair of shoes on it's a done deal....  they are owned.   The boys insist on wearing them out, no putting them in a box.  You would think they walked out of the store in a pair of  Allen Edmonds.  As they get older... and become more aware of trends and brands this will become somewhat of a challenge.  It's natural that kids want what other kids want. I guess I'll cross that  bridge when I get to it. 

This would be another entry in the chronicles of "Everything I needed to know about parenting I learned from my kids"    There are things that I know already but experiences with my boys remind me ...   Appreciate you have and you'll be blessed with bigger and better things...   You're not always going to be able to do what you want... so do what you can.  and last but not least... A shoe is only as great as the man walking in  it.

Thanks for listening.

Dad-E